


Twenty Two

by SubtextEquals



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-16
Updated: 2013-06-16
Packaged: 2017-12-15 05:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/845846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SubtextEquals/pseuds/SubtextEquals
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s James’s 22nd birthday and he isn’t there to see it. Remus looks through photographs and reflects on their past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty Two

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Winter Wolfstar Wank. But it's gen, you say! Yes, but it was for the prompt Remus and James.

Today was James’s birthday. He would have been 22. Would have, if his best friend hadn’t betrayed him.

Remus was celebrating with a bottle of firewhisky. In the past this day had been marked by laughter. The first year they were at school they had teased James mercilessly about the lavish gifts his parents had sent him. None of them admitted how jealous they were, all for different reasons. Remus that his parents had such money to spend, Peter that he was getting so many expensive gifts, and Sirius…

Remus took a swig from the bottle and rifled through his photo album. It was a chronicle of the Marauders’ lives together, from First Year to the year they all stopped living, Remus included. Whenever he ran across a picture of Sirius, bright eyed and youthful, the werewolf quickly flicked the photograph out of the album and to the floor. He would deal with them later, crush them under his foot perhaps but today was not about the man he once knew. Today was about James.

James had never once betrayed him. When suspicion was everywhere he hadn’t doubted Remus, even when the werewolf felt as if the entire Order had turned against him. It had been that way from the first, ever since James, Peter, and— ever since they confronted him back in Second Year. James was the first to reassure him. He said it didn’t matter when the others were clearly nervous, Peter still adjusting to the idea and Sirius struggling with his own prejudices, prejudices that would later consume him.

Stubbornly refusing to think about that man, Remus turned the page and found himself face to face with a picture of the four of them, and while his eyes drifted to his own young face, still drawn and pale even then, though he kept glancing at Peter and yes, even that bastard Sirius, his eyes were constantly drawn to James.

“Twenty two.” Remus sighed as he ran his fingers over his friend’s young face.  
James grinned wider and waved back at him, or perhaps he was trying to wave him off. He could be no more than 14, carefree and innocent, busy plotting the next prank with no idea what lay in wait for him. Never knowing that the man next to him would betray him and his young family.

In the picture below James swung a blushing Lily around in his arms. Her white dress billowed behind her and tangled in James’s legs. They both laughed as they freed him from his trap, at least until Lily changed her mind and kissed his lips. To the side of that was a photograph of James holding a young Harry. It was shortly after his son’s birth. Harry was wailing on and off but James didn’t seem to care. There were dark circles under his eyes and he was clearly exhausted but there was still something about his smile. He was overjoyed. Remus was devastated.

He was about to close the book and look away from the scene when James shifted Harry in his arms and reached off camera. He pulled a reluctant Remus into view. Just as tired as his friend, the werewolf smiled and waved at the camera before glancing to the crying baby and smiling broadly.

Sirius took this. The realization was a dagger in Remus’s chest but he pushed that to the side. Today was James’s day. If only he were here to see it. If only…

In the picture Remus gave James an approving clap on the back. Remus knew from memory what was coming next. Cradling Harry in his arms, James held the infant out to his good friend. The picture Remus looked staggered for a moment but he eagerly took the child into his arms.

James had trusted Remus with his son, the most precious person in the world to him. But then, he had always been too quick to trust, too ready to believe the best of everyone. Of Remus and of…

Remus sprang to his feet. He lashed out with his hand and knocked the bottle of firewhiskey to the floor. The sharp crack of glass did not bring him back to the present and he trampled the photographs of Sirius under his feet as he stormed out of the flat.

The crack of an apparation later and he was at James’s grave, running his fingers over the date of his birth and that of his death.

Remus choked back a sob as he spoke. “Happy birthday, Prongs.”


End file.
